Allentown's oldest community theater, Munopco Theatre Company, returns with its first full-scale musical in several years with "Funny Girl," the Broadway show that made a star of Barbra Streisand and is celebrating its 50th anniversary.

"Funny Girl" is based on the life of Broadway star and comedian Fanny Brice and her stormy relationship with gambler Nick Arnstein. The tap-filled musical, with a score by Jules Stine and lyrics by Bob Merrill, includes the hits "People" and "Don't Rain on My Parade." It opened on Broadway in 1964 with Streisand as Brice and was nominated for eight Tony Awards. Streisand won the Academy award for reprising the role of Brice in the 1968 film adaptation of the musical and is closely associated with the role.

Artistic Director Larry Williams says he chose "Funny Girl" because it offered a charismatic lead role in Fanny.

"It's not often that you find a musical that is about a comedian, especially a female comedian, and her life and her struggle with her dreams versus love," Williams says. "The show is rarely done, because everyone equates 'Funny Girl' with Barbra Streisand. I like the idea of doing a show that not only makes people laugh and have fun, but also makes them think and realize that dreams come at many different times in our lives, and we grow and we change and we find what works for us, and the humor and challenges that ensues with that path."

Jillian Rossi, who Williams says "happens to be crazy about Streisand," was cast as Fanny.

"Her voice, her style, her talent are great," Williams says. "She's wonderful to work with."

Touchstone Theatre in Bethlehem is presenting a rare opportunity to see the Maladype Theatre Company from Hungary perform its rollicking and wild "King Ubu" Sept. 25-28.

The performance, which marks the troupe's American debut, kicks off Touchstone's season and is one of only two stops the Hungarian company is making in the United States. It also is performing in Chicago.

Maladype, a rising star on the international theater stage, will present its experimental version of Alfred Jarry's satirical classic, "Ubu Roi," which makes fun of power, greed and the bourgeoisie. The 19th century play employs motifs found in Shakespeare, such as "Macbeth's" ghosts and murder of the king, as its explores the cowardly and amoral Ubu. In Maladype's production, the members tell the story through an unusual mixture of theater, nonsense and myth staged around a half-pyramid pile of tabloid newspapers.

It's not to be missed, says Bill George, Touchstone founder and ensemble member, who describes the show as "raw, rude and rowdy" and "delightfully eccentric, wildly inappropriate, energetically grotesque."

"It's the first time this production will be seen in the U.S. — a one-of-a-kind opportunity," he says.

The production is performed in Hungarian with English subtitles.

Director Zoltan Balazs says in a news release that he structures the storytelling "as if schoolchildren were entertaining their schoolmates after classes."

Maladype first presented "King Ubu" in a Budapest apartment in December 2009, with audience members who were encouraged to participate in the performance.

Touchstone Artistic Director Jp Jordan met members of Maladype in 2011 in Romania at an international theater festival. Jordan was struck by their creativity and physical presence and invited them to perform in Bethlehem.

"Watching Maldype perform resonates in the very core of your being," Jordan says. "They are a company with a wide range of emotions that can take you from the darkest parts of the human experience to the pinnacles of joy."

The troupe also will present a performance style workshop open to the public at the Arena Theatre at Moravian College 1-4 p.m. Sept. 27. Members will share the company's approach to theater performance. No experience is necessary and attendees are invited to participate or observe.

The award-winning play "Proof," which contrasts the precision of math with the messiness of human relationships, will kick off the Lafayette College theater season at Williams Center for the Arts Oct. 1-4.

The 2000 play by David Auburn, which won the Tony Award for best play and the Pulitzer Prize for drama, confronts the intersection of genius and insanity through the daughter of a celebrated mathematician whose real family legacy just might be mental illness.

"Proof" explores Catherine's fear of following in her father's footsteps, both mathematically and mentally after her father, a brilliant mathematician and teacher, dies after a long bout with mental illness. Hal, one of the teacher's students, finds a ground-breaking mathematical proof about prime number among his belongings.

Catch an off-Broadway show for just $20 during the 20at20 promotion by the Off Broadway Alliance to promote off-Broadway theater.

Through Sept. 28, participating shows offer $20 tickets to the public 20 minutes before curtain. Go to the box office of the show you want to see 20 minutes before it begins and say "20at20" to get the discount.

The nearly 50 shows include everything from family-friendly fare such as "The Berenstain Bears Live!" and "Gazillion Bubble Show," to long-running musicals "Avenue Q," and "The Fantasticks" to naughty themes in "50 Shades The Musical!" and "Sex Tips For Straight Women From A Gay Man."